


Étude

by DrWorm



Category: Rope (1948)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 16:14:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrWorm/pseuds/DrWorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like the old joke says: to get to Carnegie Hall you have to practice, practice, practice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Étude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slavetohiscat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slavetohiscat/gifts).



_At boarding school, while war rages in Europe..._

 

"Are you still re-writing that philosophy essay for Cadell's class?"

"Yes."

"It won't make him love you, you know."

Brandon scowled. "I don't want him to _love_ me."

"All I know is that you've been such a terrible bore lately," Phillip said. He sat across from Brandon at the library table. They were alone together, except for the elderly librarian at the front desk.

"So go find David and bother him."

"No, I don't think so. He's at least as boring as you." Phillip turned to the window. Dinner wasn't for another half an hour and yet it was already dark outside, and he could see nothing but his own reflection. "Do you think it will snow?"

"What difference does it make?"

"None to you, I suppose. The rest of us will be out in it this weekend, having a good time while you sit in here working your fingers to the bone over some old Greeks."

Brandon glanced up. "There's just so much to think about. Serious things." He reached forward urgently and put his hand over Philip's, grasping him too tightly. "What if Jerry were to invade us tonight? What would you do?"

"I don't know. I don't think they're going to invade us at all."

"They're ruthless, though." Brandon shook his head, pitying Phillip's naivete. "I would fight them, of course."

Phillip smirked, but it was a small smirk, the kind that often went overlooked by Brandon. "You would join the army?"

"Don't be s-stupid. I'm not going to risk dying for n-nothing. I'd be part of the intellectual r-r-resistance, of course." Brandon pressed his lips together for a moment and breathed in deeply through his nose. "I'd do something really important," he hissed.

"What if they invaded right now? Came right in and took us all prisoner."

"At school?” Now it was Brandon's turn to scoff. “They would never. They would strike at the city, if they came at New York at all. Or they'd go straight for Washington."

"Just pretend." Phillip squeezed Brandon's hand. "Would you try to save me?"

Brandon jerked back from Phillip's sweaty grasp, glancing behind him to make sure no one else had come into the library. "I might," he said, packing up his notebook and his copy of Plato's _Republic_. "But I might not. It all depends."

"On?"

"On whether you're worth it," Brandon said. He smiled, quick and friendly with all his teeth. “Have you been worth it to me lately?”

“Probably not,” Phillip admitted, not especially chagrined by the thought.

“You never come with us to see Rupert anymore.”

Phillip shrugged. “You always talk about the same things. I'd rather get a practice room and work, if that's all you're going to do.”

“But then I never see you.”

“You could come and listen while I play.”

“Just come tonight, won't you?” Brandon wheedled. “I'll get them all telling stories. I know that'll keep you around longer.”

Phillip looked at his watch and stood up. “We'll have to hurry or we'll be late for supper,” he said.

 

After dinner, Phillip trailed followed Brandon to Mr. Cadell's rooms. Mr. Cadell had a standing invitation open to certain boys in his house to drop by any time in the evenings for some intellectually stimulating discussion. Brandon was the only one of them who always referred to Mr. Cadell by his first name, at least outside the classroom. He acted as if Cadell were just another chum, some older boy who had taken them under his wing rather than a schoolteacher thirty years their senior. As far as Phillip could tell, Brandon amused Mr. Cadell, and so he was permitted to continue. Brandon was considered by most of their class to be Mr. Cadell's pet, but to Phillip it seemed more as if Mr. Cadell were watching Brandon to see what he'd do next, like an experiment in the chemistry lab that was supposed to generate interesting results if only you let it alone long enough.

“I'll steer them toward stories tonight,” Brandon promised Phillip to get him to come along. He knew that Phillip preferred exchanging tall tales to going over the day's newspapers and endlessly debating tactical decisions being made overseas. And Brandon's promise was a true one: as _de facto_ leader of their little band, he usually set the tone of all their conversations. So when he threw himself into the armchair closest to the fire, directly opposite Mr. Cadell's imposing green leather wingback, and began a story about hunting for pirate treasure, no one objected. They all listened dutifully and no one spoke until, after Brandon had finished explaining the cunning way in which the treasure had been concealed, to be recovered by the plucky and deserving group of boys who had found the map hidden in a bottle buried to its neck in the sand at a nearby cove, Kenneth said, “Good. But it sounds a bit familiar.”

“So?” Brandon asked. “Pirates make a good story.”

“It reminds me of something I read ages ago,” Kenneth persisted. “Something by Poe?”

“Poe didn't write anything about pirates,” David scoffed. 

“Actually, Kenneth is correct,” Mr. Cadell interjected. “Most of Brandon's story was lifted from Poe's 'The Gold-Bug.' So kudos to you, Brandon, for engaging in some non-required reading.”

Brandon scowled. “No one owns stories about pirates,” he grumped, shifting in his chair. 

“I'll go next,” David volunteered, and recounted a version of the same story he told every time: an unusually gruesome elaboration on the exploits of Tommy Rawhead and Bloody Bones. The only aspect of the tale that changed from telling to telling was the identity of Tommy's victims. This time, with a wink at Brandon, David had Tommy Rawhead guard a pirate treasure and devour the two unlucky boys who stumbled upon its location. 

“I think Bloody Bones gets bloodier every time we hear from him,” Mr. Cadell quipped. “Thank you, David.” He tapped the bowl of his pipe on the arm of his chair as he turned to look at Phillip, who was sitting on the floor beside Brandon's armchair. “Well, Phillip? Have you got a story in mind?”

“Not really,” Phillip mumbled. “I mean, maybe.” He glanced up at Brandon, but Brandon was staring into the fire.

“Well, give it a try.”

Phillip took a breath and began. “Once upon a time—”

“Don't start that way,” Brandon snapped. “It's dull.”

Mr. Cadell cleared his throat. “It's not your story, Brandon. Phillip can start it any way he likes.”

After a long, uncomfortable pause, Phillip began again. “So a long time ago, there were two children. A brother and sister. They were in the woods, and they—they got lost. They started to follow the river. They thought maybe it would lead them home. But the boy, he saw a hand in the reeds. There was a body in there. Then they saw a witch crossing the river, so they hid in some bushes. And they watched while the witch took—um, she took out the liver. From the body. She was going to use it in a spell. But then she smelled the brother and sister, where they were hiding, so she snuck around behind them and laid her hands on their heads. And her touch, it turned them to stone.

“Then she put the stone boy and the stone girl into her bag and flew home to her cottage, which was made of marsh weeds and, I guess, chicken bones. She put the little stone boy by the door, where he held her hat and her umbrella. And she put the little stone girl in the kitchen, where she held her pots and pans. And they stayed that way for hundreds of years, until the witch died. Then, without the witch, the cottage began to fall down. After a thousand years, the last little piece of the cottage turned to dust and the little girl and the little boy could move again. But because a thousand years had passed, they couldn't find their way home, so instead they turned into birds and flew away. 

“The end,” Phillip said. He looked down at his hands and waited.

“What a curious story,” Mr. Cadell finally said.

“It sure was odd,” agreed David. “Like a fairy tale, sort of.”

“I couldn't think of anything else,” Phillip said.

“Rupert,” Brandon said, leaning forward in his chair, “w-why don't you tell the story about the bride?”

Mr. Cadell raised his eyebrows. “You're overly fond of that one,” he said. “Such a morbid curiosity.”

“Yes,” Brandon agreed without shame, and so Mr. Cadell told his own rambling version of the story, and did not skimp on descriptions of the bride's panicked discovery that she had become trapped in her grandmother's hope chest in the attic. He crisply described the panic of her groom, and the family's frantic searches as the bride pounded the lid of what would soon be her coffin. Then, finally, he lingered on the discovery of her remains decades later, and the tragic reaction of her would-have-been husband when he heard the news. Brandon hung on his every word, as he always did.

When Mr. Cadell had finished, he looked at each one of his charges in turn. “I do believe you are the strangest group of boys I've ever met,” he said, staring directly at Brandon, who stared coolly back. “Now go to your rooms and get to bed.”

 

Once the lights were out, and Mr. Cadell's footsteps were faint ghosts inspecting the rooms further down the hall, Brandon lifted his blankets and beckoned to Phillip. Phillip obeyed, slipping out of his own bed and into Brandon's. “What?” he whispered.

“Where did you get that story?” Brandon asked after a carefully measured moment of silence.

“I don't know. I just made it up, I guess.” Sensing this was not enough, Phillip added, “My grandmother used to tell us all sorts of fairy tales.”

There was a carefully measured pause, then Brendan nodded. “All right,” he said. Phillip could feel Brendan's breath puff against his cheek as they faced each other, sharing the same pillow. “You stay in your head too much,” Brandon said, and pinched Phillip's upper arm.

“What?”

“All that practicing.” Brandon pinched Phillip again, on his thigh. “And then you think up strange things.”

“Oh stop,” Phillip sighed, pushing his hand away. “You do the same thing, hiding in the library all afternoon.”

“Hmm.” Brandon flicked the tip of Phillip's nose, and laughed when Phillip blinked and jerked back.

“Stop,” Phillip said. “I mean it.” But he wasn't sure he did mean it, not all the way, and a part of him wanted Brandon to keep pinching him and putting his hands on him. “Go to sleep.”

“You first.”

“I will.” Phillip closed his eyes. He kept them shut while Brandon prodded him in the chest and stomach, hummed in his ear, and blew air up his nostrils. Phillip only opened his eyes again when the assaults died down, and Brandon's breathing became a more regular pulse against his chin and down his neck. Brandon's eyes were closed. Everything was still. Phillip waited.

 

_Post-War bliss in a New York apartment..._

 

“You first.”

“No. You.”

“But I asked you first,” Brandon said. He didn't whine, because Brandon never whined. He smiled widely. He cajoled.

“I think,” Phillip said, “that I would wall you up in a cave.”

“A cave? Where would you find a cave?”

“Or push you off a cliff.”

“What cliff?”

“A boat?”

“When was the last time we were on a boat?”

Phillip frowned. “Or maybe I'd just strangle you.”

Brandon took a long drag on his cigarette. “Kinky,” he said. 

“If you say so.”

“I think I would try to set you up to have a horrible accident,” Brandon mused. He leaned back on the settee and crossed his legs. “Push you out into traffic, maybe, or knock you off the roof.”

“If that's what you like,” Phillip said. He stared at the sheet music in front of him, picked up a pencil, and made a brief notation.

“But strangling is so much more intimate.”

“I suppose.”

“I think so.” Brandon knocked the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray on the end table. “Maybe you should try it out.”

“On you?” Phillip asked. Brandon shrugged. “No,” Phillip said after a moment. “I think I would miss you if I did.”

Brandon laughed. “So sweet,” he said. “You wouldn't have to do it till the end, of course.”

“What, strangle you part-way?” Phillip looked up.

“It might be fun. Wear your gloves, and I'll pretend you're a sinister stranger.”

Phillip slid further up on the piano bench and shook his head. “No, I don't think so,” he said. He began the Chopin étude he'd been working through, but fumbled it after the second measure.

“Or,” Brandon ventured, “we could try it on someone else first.” He scratched behind his ear, idly, as he watched Phillip. “As practice.”

“Practice?” Phillip began the piece again. Three measures, this time. 

Began again. Three. Again. Four. Always getting better. 

“Yes,” Phillip said. “Practice.”


End file.
